Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Skater's Waltz, by Peggy JaegerPublished March 2015 by The Wild Rose Press

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Figure skater Tiffany
Lennox is busy with rehearsals for an upcoming ice show when the only
man she’s ever loved comes home after a two-year overseas stint. She
needs him to see her for the woman she’s become and not the child he
knew to ensure he stays home, this time, for good. With her.

For
all his wanderlust and hunger for professional success, Cole Greer comes
home wanting nothing more than to rest, relax and recover. He is
delighted in being Tiffany’s hero and has a special place in his heart
reserved for her. But faced with the oh-so-desirable woman she’s become,
he starts questioning his determination to keep their relationship
platonic.

When forced by the television network to go back on
assignment, Cole - for the first time in his life - is torn between his
career and his heart.

MY TAKE:

I think this book deserves a different, more emotional cover because the current one doesn't do it justice. The chemistry between the main characters crackles with electricity and the tension from the subplot kept me turning pages well past my bedtime. This was a fun, fast romance about two friends who were always destined to be so much more.

Olympic medalist Tiffany Lennox has traveled the world and brought home the gold twice, but journalist Cole Greer still sees her as the bratty kid who dogged his every move when they were young. He even still calls her "Brat," although it's an affectionate nickname. Finally home after a two year stint reporting from war torn Sudan, Cole is confronted with the reality of his true feelings for Tiffany, and conflicted on whether to act on them. Sticking with the old status quo gets harder as her life is threatened and Cole's protective instincts kick in full force.

Author Peggy Jaeger writes with feeling and heart, making the reader root for the characters to find their way to each other. The secondary characters added color and dimension to this sweet and sizzling love story. A thoroughly enjoyable read, I will be looking for more books from this author for my summer reading list!

Friday, May 27, 2016

It's hard to imagine it when I still picture him as this little kid - not the oldest, not the youngest, but my middle one. Kind, thoughtful, smiling, and Always there. Except now he'll be headed off to college in Chicago.

Senior year has been a rollercoaster ride of emotional upheaval, so much to process and so many bittersweet endings. Today is another in that journey, but I'm hoping it's a positive one for him. So now I'm going to share some of my favorite pics from this past year...and try to get over the fact that next school year there will only be one little birdie left in the nest...

Congrats to my middle child, and the Valedictorian of his graduating class. May your college days hold even more smiles than High School!

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Today I'm chatting
with author Jana Richards, who writes romance for The Wild Rose Press (among other things.) I read and reviewed (and thoroughly enjoyed) her novella CHILL OUT this past winter, as part of the Candy Hearts Romance series, and invited her to come talk about writing and life.

Welcome, Jana! Tell us bit about yourself, and what kind of books you like to read and write.

I’ve
tried my hand at various types of writing, everything from magazine articles
and short stories to full length romantic suspense, WW2 romances and romantic
comedy. I love creating characters with a sense of humor but also a serious,
darker side. There’s nothing more interesting than peeling back the layers of a
character to see what makes them tick.

When
I’m not writing or doing housework (not my favorite thing), I’m at my part-time
day job as a bookkeeper/admin assistant. I live in western Canada with my
husband and my dog Lou.

As
I said above, I like variety in my writing in regards to length and the romance
genre. These days I’m also experimenting with series writing, which is great
fun but hard work. I like to read romance, of course, in many genres,
especially Regency historicals, but I also love mysteries, and many literary
works.

What's your favorite part of being an author?

Being
able to write in my pajamas all day! Seriously, although I do enjoy hanging out
in my PJs, it’s not my favorite part of writing. I love being in control, creating
characters with personalities and backgrounds, and putting them in tough
situations to see what happens. I get to pull the strings. The act of creating
my own little worlds and the people who inhabit them is my favorite part.

What's your approach to writing? Do you plot or go with the flow?

I
use a somewhat messy hybrid method of both plotting and writing by the seat of
my pants. I need an idea of where I’m going, so before I start writing, I
create a synopsis of sorts that gets the bare bones story down. As I’m writing,
I’m winging it to a certain extent, definitely going with the flow. Sometimes
when I get stuck, or I’m not sure which direction to take, I’ll go back to that
synopsis and expand or change it so I get a better picture of where to take my
characters next. My synopsis is usually a handwritten mess, with bits crossed
out and arrows going in various directions. I’m probably the only one who can
understand it, and even I have trouble sometimes!

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why?

If
I had a superpower, I would want to be able to speed read. I’d love to be able
to touch a book and absorb everything about it from start to finish. So many
books, so little time!

Tell us about your latest release!

It’s
not my newest or latest release, but The Girl Most Likely
(ebook version) is on sale for .99 cents from May 13 to 27, 2016. Here’s the
blurb:

Cara
McLeod, the girl most likely to have the perfect marriage, is now divorced and,
in her own words, “fat, frumpy, and over forty.” The thought of facing former
classmates—and the ex-husband who dumped her—at her high school reunion
terrifies her. Cajoled into attending by her kids and her best friend, Cara
enlists help at the gym to lose weight and look great for the reunion. Personal
Trainer Finn Cooper is more than willing to help—but does he have to be so
to-die-for gorgeous?

Finn
thinks Cara is perfect just the way she is. She’s everything he wants in a
woman, except for one thing—she can’t get past the fact that he's eight years
younger. To Finn, age and weight are just numbers. But can he convince Cara the
numbers she worries about add up to only one thing for him—love?

If
you prefer a print version, The Girl Most Likely is available
in print from The Wild Rose Press.

Love the sound of your story! I need to grab a copy...
Okay, you’re casting the movie version of your novel – who would you choose for
the main characters? We’re talking dream cast.

Cara
is 43 in my book, and I wanted her to be as beautiful as Michelle Pfieffer,
though she’s put on a few pounds. At 35, Finn is eight years younger. Do you
know British actor Aiden Turner? He plays Ross Poldark in “Poldark” on PBS. Gorgeous.
I think he’d make a perfect Finn.

Oh yum. I'd go see that movie! Where can readers find your book and where can they find you online?

Monday, May 16, 2016

Winter in Sweetwater County, by Ciara KnightPublished January 2014 by Defy the Dark Publishing

About the Book:

Lisa Mortan’s ideal life
crumbles when her rich and powerful fiancé demands she ends an unwanted
pregnancy. With no job or social support, she flees to a small town in
hopes of finding a good family for her unborn baby, but instead finds a
man who is as broken as she is.

Eric Gaylord returns to his home
town for a respite after a tragic loss, but when his spitfire mother
takes on an unknown woman as a business partner, he is forced to face
the nightmare he’d left behind or risk losing the one woman who could
heal his heart.

My Take

An old-fashioned, small town sweet romance that's been updated just enough to be contemporary... but still doesn't have a contemporary romance feel. It's more like a Hallmark movie, filled with small town quirkiness, gossip and meddling neighbors, with nothing too steamy and hi-jinx that keeps pages turning while you wait for the other shoe to drop. They keep talking about those shoes dropping...

An editor once told me I had "too much ex" in my story. She said, "everyone has an ex, everyone understands the ex. Paint in broad brush and move on. Romance is about possibilities, not the past." Being the newbie author, of course I argued with her. My ex was the bad guy, so I felt it important to build him up. In the end, that particular manuscript didn't get far. (My takeaway: Newbies shouldn't argue with editors, duh. Editors tend to know what works.)

Both of the main characters in Ciara Knight's story are haunted by memories of their exes. Too much ex, and not enough focus on what's right in front of them - each other. Now, granted, one of the exes does come back into the picture as the evil nemesis, but I felt like it could've had more startling impact if it hadn't been dwelled on and telegraphed throughout the entire book.

I will admit that "sweet" is not one of my usual genres of choice, and I
know this is a very successful series, so perhaps I just didn't "get" it.

All that said, it was easy to read, well written and enjoyable for a few hours of beach reading. If you like sweet, small town romances that don't tug too hard on your heart strings and have nary a naked body part to be found, this series may be a good choice to load on your Kindle for easy summer reading by the pool. (And trust me, there's something to be said for not getting caught by a stranger - or another mom - reading something steamier while supposedly watching the kids swim. Not that it's ever happened to me. Okay maybe just once...)

Friday, May 13, 2016

Last summer, I did several events and book signings with my newly re-released Young Adult book, DESCENT, Son of a Mermaid Book One. At one pajama party event, I had to read a passage from my book to the pj-clad kids draped all over the library furniture and sprawled along the carpeted floors. There were a group of us at the event, and several other authors read first, grabbing the kids' interest and leaving everyone wanting more.

I totally panicked.

What passage of my story could I possibly read that would measure up to some of the others? I took a piece of advice from another adult and read the scene where the two protagonists first meet.

Not the goosebumps moment I could have hoped for. More like a yawn moment for the group, a bit of down time between two other riveting readers.

Wasted opportunity.

If I'd planned better, or been thinking more clearly, I could've read one of my favorite scenes - maybe the bicycle lesson between Shea and the girl he doesn't know (yet) is a mermaid, or where Shea first realizes he can't drown. I mean, up until this point, he's never even been underwater, let alone tumbling in the murky depths of the salty Herring River where the currents rush to pull him out to sea. I loved writing this, and I would've loved reading it out loud - and next time, I will.

Here's the excerpt:

Shea squinted
against the glare. The bright sunshine sparkled on the river’s surface as the
water rushed back from the ocean, the swift current creating streams of light
out of the reflected brilliance.

“I
love watching the tide come in,” Hailey said. The pair sat on the edge of the
dock mesmerized by the flowing water, bare feet dangling inches above the
rising surface. Fishing poles and sandals lay discarded behind them on the
wooden walkway. “It’s like the river went out to play in the ocean and is now
rushing home for lunch.”

He
elbowed her ribs. “You think about food all of the time, you know that?”

“Only
forty million times. And I’ve only known you about a week!” He paused, watching
a seagull wheel overhead. “Finding all those wooden lures this morning made me
want to go fishing. You didn’t have to tag along.”

“I
wanted to.” She turned her face upward to watch the same gull. “Fishing is a
good Cape Cod experience, and it gets me out of the house. Chip has been awful
to live with lately.”

“He
still doesn’t like it here?”

Hailey
shook her head. She stood on the dock and pulled her hot pink shirt over her
head, revealing a plain, black one-piece bathing suit. “C’mon, Shea, let’s jump
in.” She shimmied out of her shorts, dropped the clothes in a heap on the
wooden dock, and cannonballed into the river.

He shielded
his face with his arm across to block the splash. “Watch it! And no, I told you
I don’t know how to swim. I’ll sit here and watch you drown.”

With
an exaggerated pout, she swam toward him. “It’s no fun alone. Pull me onto the
dock.” He stood and bent to help her, but she tugged his arm instead.

He
toppled into the river beside her. The blue-green coolness swirled as he
tumbled through the water, arms and legs flailing. He struggled to hold his
breath, his cheeks puffing like a chipmunk. Somehow he managed to right
himself, head over kicking feet, but still he sank into the murky depths.

Millions
of air bubbles traced the path of his body, the precious oxygen escaping from
his clothing and through his nose. He hadn’t been kidding when he told Hailey
he couldn’t swim. Suddenly, he realized he was inside a scene from one of his
nightmares, except this time it was real.

He
was drowning.

Eyes
wide with panic, he clawed helplessly at the water. A huge school of minnows
parted down the middle to swim around him, surrounding him like walls on either
side of his body. Turning his face upward, he saw Hailey’s legs kicking above
him as he sank further and further under the water. He had no idea the river
was this deep! How would he ever get back to the surface?

His
throat and lungs burned from the effort of holding his breath. Darkness pressed
hard against his eyes as he sank deeper, swirls of strange colors dancing in
front of him as his whole body strained against the sudden lack of oxygen.

I
need to breathe, he thought desperately, his whole body feeling like it was
on fire. This isn’t a dream. I’m going to die! His flailing limbs slowed
their movements when his feet thunked onto the mucky river bottom.

His
eyes squeezed shut, an image of his father playing in his mind. Next to his
dad, he saw the face from his dreams. The blonde woman, the one he now knew was
his mother. The one who looked like a mermaid. If he opened his eyes now, would
she be hovering in front of him, like in the dreams? Fear of the unknown
shivered down his spine and his eyes stayed closed.

Searing
pain ripped through his throat, as if his entire body would explode any second
from the effort of holding his breath. Finally he opened his eyes, expecting to
see her there by his side. Smiling at him. Reaching for his hand, just like his
dream.

Nothing.

Nothing
but swaying fronds of seaweed grabbing at him, tangling themselves around his
bare shins. There was no mermaid to save him.

He
was going to die.

Finally,
the pain overwhelmed him. He gave up trying to fight. Shea opened his mouth to
exhale the stale air pounding like a jackhammer in his lungs. Large bubbles
rushed to the surface in a hurry to escape. Water gushed in, filling his mouth
and lungs. He struggled to breathe, but there was no air on the river bottom,
only water.

Water
that somehow acted like fresh air to his exhausted body.

I
can breathe under water?

He
took a second deep and satisfying breath. How could it be possible?

I’m
breathing water!Maybe this is how drowning feels.

His
head pounded and his entire body still felt like it was on fire, burning out of
control. But he was breathing. Water. He sucked big mouthfuls in and out,
faster and faster, realizing he wasn’t going to die after all.

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Welcome!

I'm an author, editor, magazine columnist, wife, and mother to three kids and two big dogs... not necessarily in that same order each day. I try to write every day and read a book a week, but life often gets in the way.

I write romance and adventure for young adults and the young at heart, and living next to the Atlantic Ocean influences everything I write...